by yoursl | Sep 25, 2016 | Sex and Art, Sex and Culture, Sex and History, Sex and Religion |
My partner Dutch and I were sitting down to watch restored films in our friend Todd’s backyard last night when someone in the audience asked for a bottle opener. Todd’s new neighbor, a young blonde woman, whipped out a bottle opener which was penis-shaped. Of course, I had to ask her where she found such an item. “Spain,” she said as she handed me the opener to admire. The opener was beautifully decorated wood with a lovely shape that fit in my hand perfectly. It was painted black with scrollwork in gold and white with the tip of the penis etched and painted gold. Quite simply, it was a beautiful piece of working art. Even Dutch agreed that our simple unadorned wooden shoe bottle opener from The Netherlands doesn’t compare to this woman’s penis bottle opener. A Google search revealed that her penis opener can be found in Fuerteventura, Canary Islands, Spain. Sadly, I cannot locate any history on why the penis is offered as a bottle opener — if it is a tourist money-maker or if there is a cultural reason. My internet search revealed that other penis bottle openers are sold as souvenirs in Bali and Greece as well. Travelers to Australia can purchase a furry kangaroo scrotum bottle opener. The genuine kangaroo balls are harvested and processed according to Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service rules and regulations, meaning the kangaroo scrotums are harvested only after the kangaroos are killed for other reasons, such as for meat consumption. Visitors to The Icelandic Phallological Museum, located in Reykjavik, Iceland, can enjoy the world’s only museum dedicated to...
by yoursl | Sep 10, 2015 | LGBT, Sex and Religion, Sex in the News |
I know firsthand what religious intolerance and hate in the name of God feels like. I grew up in their shadows, but I grew OUT of those shadows as well. I used the religious intolerance and hatred I experienced in my childhood and adolescence as a jumping off point in my quest for knowledge. At the time, I simply wanted to know as much as I could about the world around me in the hopes I would eventually find other people like me. The purpose of my blog is to give readers knowledge and information. As tempting as it is to use my blog as a platform to give my own opinion of the situation involving Kim Davis, the Rowan County, Ky., clerk who was jailed for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, I am instead going to follow my blog’s mission of “Knowledge should not be forbidden” and provide my readers with pertinent information. Since faith is at the heart of the Davis issue, let’s look at some religions and their views on the subject of same-sex marriages. Davis’ faith is Apostolic Christian, which means she is a member of the Pentecost branch of Christianity. In 2011, the Pew Research Center estimated that there were 279 million Pentecostal Christians in the world. This figure equates to 4 percent of the world’s 2011 population and to 12.8 percent of the world’s Christian population in 2011. In an article published this week in USA Today, Vinson Synan, a professor of church history at Regent University in Virginia and an expert on the Pentecostal faith, stated, “There are an estimated 15...
